For combining firm commitment to the mandate “with the agility to adapt as the world around us changes,” vowed Christine Lagarde - whose mandate as Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund expires this month - during her hearing on 4 September before the EP ECON Committee. The aim of the hearing was to assess her fitness for the European Central Bank (ECB) top position.

In an open letter on 8 August, EP President David Sassoli urged the European Commission President Jean-Claude Junker to find a solution for 121 migrants stranded between Malta and Italy, after being denied entry in Malta. Urgent assistance and fair distribution of the migrants is needed, Sassoli insists.

In a statement the European Economic and Social Committee stated that the bloc needs to direct existing programmes towards supporting measures in agroecology in farming, in order to make agriculture more resilient to climate change, and to raise value of food by making it healthier.

Discussions at the EP Committee on Transport and Tourism on Wednesday, the first sitting for the new legislative term, showed clearly that the battle on Mobility Package I would be even fiercer in the current political cycle. This 'hot potato' was transferred to the new parliament for Act 2 as in the next to the last plenary session for the previous EP term, in April, MEPs adopted at first reading all three reports of the very divisive Mobility Package I.

Humanitarian assistance in the Mediterranean, NGOs' operations and the diverging positions of Member States were the topics of a heated debate, held on Wednesday in the EP plenary in Strasbourg with the Council and the Commission. Lawmakers deliberated whether the rescue activities of NGO vessels in the Mediterranean Sea, taking in people 20 miles from the Libyan coast and bringing them hundreds of miles away to Italy, is a crime or not.

MEPs approved on Wednesday the composition of its interparliamentary delegations. As in the previous legislative term, Parliament will have 44 interparliamentary delegations, maintaining relations with parliamentarians in other countries, regions and organisations.

Today evening in the plenary in Strasbourg MEPs backed Ursula von der Leyen as the next President of the European Commission. In a vote carried out by secret paper ballot, 383 lawmakers gave thumbs up on her nomination, to 327 and 22 abstained. Thus, von der Leyen becomes the first woman to head the EU executive.

In preparation for the big debate and vote on the new Commission President, on 16 July, during the European Parliament plenary in Strasbourg, the candidate to succeed Jean-Claude Juncker, Ursula von der Leyen, spent long hours in the EP in Brussels during the last days, holding a series of meetings with parliamentary groups. She also took part in the sitting of the extraordinary Conference of Presidents.

The European Parliament will have an Italian as its President for another term. In the place of the centre-right Forza Italia (FI) Antonio Tajani, now the Parliament will be led by the centre-left Democratic Party (PD) MEP David Sassoli. In the last composition he was the Parliament's vice-president in charge of the budget and Euro-Mediterranean policy.

The 9th legislature of the European Parliament was officially constituted today in Strasbourg at 10.00 by outgoing President Antonio Tajani, EP press service reported. The new parliament is composed of seven political groups - one less than the previous legislature.

For combining firm commitment to the mandate “with the agility to adapt as the world around us changes,” vowed Christine Lagarde - whose mandate as Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund expires this month - during her hearing on 4 September before the EP ECON Committee. The aim of the hearing was to assess her fitness for the European Central Bank (ECB) top position.

In an open letter on 8 August, EP President David Sassoli urged the European Commission President Jean-Claude Junker to find a solution for 121 migrants stranded between Malta and Italy, after being denied entry in Malta. Urgent assistance and fair distribution of the migrants is needed, Sassoli insists.

In a statement the European Economic and Social Committee stated that the bloc needs to direct existing programmes towards supporting measures in agroecology in farming, in order to make agriculture more resilient to climate change, and to raise value of food by making it healthier.

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